On dissemination mechanism of corporate social responsibility (CSR): Analysis with agent simulation

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), such as pro-environmental
behaviour and fair trade, is a kind of normative behaviour by private
companies to provide a quasi-public good. We study dissemination mechanism of CSR with a multi-agent model in which corporation agents and
consumer agents interact with each other. We show that the mechanism
to disseminate CSR is a positive feedback between the corporations' popularity seeking behaviour and the consumers' social learning in which
CSR-seeking preference is evaluated according to both the local average
of the preferences of surrounding consumers and the global average of the
investment in CSR by all corporations. We also discuss an institutional
design to establish CSR from an objectionable social state.